Diagnosing Exercise Addiction
Sara Schlehuser
PSYC 3120
Exercise Addiction
Introduction
In our culture exercise is seen as something that we all must do to maintain a healthy lifestyle. However, at what point does exercise become dangerous and at what point is it possible to be an exercise addict. My diagnostic system will compare two systems on which amount of exercise is compared to one’s self esteem and body image and with those results I hope to be successful in diagnosing exercise addicts.
Diagnostic
System 1: Amount of Exercise
The purpose of system 1 is to assess the amount of exercise that is being done. It will include how many days per week the person is exercising as well as how many minutes are included in their daily workouts. This seems to be a needed system for exercise addiction because to know if the person is an addict you would need to know how many days per week the activity is being done as well as for how many minutes. The categories for system 1 are seldom, average, and excessive and they are explained in the chart below.
|
Seldom |
0-2 days per week 30 minutes or less |
|
Average |
3-5 days per week 30-60 minutes |
|
Excessive |
6-7 days per week 60 minutes or more |
This system has advantages as well as disadvantages. One disadvantage of this system is if the person is involved in athletics or involved in a team sport of some kind. This would be a disadvantage because if a person is involved in athletics then they are exercising more then the average person. In this case, if you were looking to diagnosis an athlete as an exercise addict you would need to look at how many sports they are playing, how much they are eating, and also how much time they are spending outside of normal athletic practices working out. Another disadvantage of this system is that you wouldn’t know what type of physical activity the person is being involved in. This would probably be an important area that you would need to know in diagnosing an exercise addict for the simple reason as how vigorously the person is working themselves. However, this system has its advantages because to even diagnosis somebody as an exercise addict you would have to know the amount of time the person is spending on exercise and also how many days per week. This system basically helps the diagnostician is gathering information about how much time the person is spending on exercise.
Diagnostic System 2
The purpose of system 2 is to compare the person’s body image and self esteem. This system has three places under which the person could be placed. They include negative, neutral, or positive. The criteria for each are shown in the table below:
|
Negative |
Preoccupied with thoughts
about body Past problems with eating
disorders No social support system Possibly overweight or
obese |
|
Neutral |
Has no concern with body
image Possible past problems of
eating disorder Receives social support
when necessary Not concerned with current
weight |
|
Positive |
Happy and content with body
image No past problems with
eating disorders Surrounded with a positive
support system Maintains a healthy body
weight |
As in System 1, System 2 also has its own advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages for system 2 are that it may include too much information although each of the factors included are important when diagnosing exercise addiction. I included eating disorders in this system because if the person has a past problem with an eating disorder it is more likely that they would have an issue with their self-esteem as well as with their body image. I included the social support system because if the client is receiving no social support then it is possible they will also be having problems with their self-esteem. In using system 2 it may become overwhelming for someone who is attempting to diagnosis someone as an exercise addict. The advantage of system 2 is that it addresses important issues that need to be looked at in an exercise addict.
Method
For my method I used ten diagnosticians during class time. They were given a packet of three different case studies (see attached paper) and were told to pick one from each system in which they felt the person in the case study fell. The diagnosticians were chosen randomly and the survey was administered during normal class time. I used an expert to determine the validity of my study. For my expert I used my friend from home who is a personal trainer at the local gym. I chose to pick her because she has a background around fitness and she seemed well educated on my particular topic.
Results
The results of the three case studies are shown below in the tables:
System 1: Amount of
Exercise
|
|
Case Study #1 |
Case Study # 2 |
Case Study # 3 |
|
Seldom |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Average |
1 |
0 |
0 |
|
Excessive |
9* |
10* |
10* |
* represents the experts choice
|
Reliability for System 1 |
29/30=96% |
|
Validity for System 1 |
29/30=96% |
System 1 proved to work as I had expected it to. It was both 96% reliable and valid as I would expect because it seems that what this system is measuring would be easily found. My expert seemed very confidant in diagnosing people with this system based on how reliable the system would be. She stated this was a needed system to diagnosis somebody as an exercise addict.
System 2: Body Image
and Self-Esteem
|
|
Case Study # 1 |
Case Study # 2 |
Case Study # 3 |
|
Negative |
7* |
5* |
7* |
|
Neutral |
3 |
4 |
3 |
|
Positive |
0 |
1 |
0 |
* represents the experts choice
|
Reliability for System 2 |
19/29= 65% |
|
Validity for System 2 |
19/29= 65% |
System 2 didn’t seem to be as reliable as System 1 proved to be probably because of how exclusive the criteria were for this system. System 2 was only 65% reliable as well as 65% valid. After my research was completed I could see how it could be difficult to diagnose somebody using this system. It seems there is too much information in my system for the diagnostician to gain from only meeting with the client a couple of times. System 2 proved to contain important information because it touched on a little bit of everything and with the criteria that I selected for system 2 it could show a bigger picture on why people are addicted to exercise.
Conclusions
Overall I believe
my diagnostic system could possibly help in diagnosing someone as an exercise
addict. It takes into account not only the amount of exercise being done but
also different factors that could possibly be contributing to someone becoming
an exercise addict. This study was interesting to me because I had heard it was
possible to become addicted to exercise but I didn’t realize it was a growing
problem in today’s society. I think if I were to conduct this study over again
I would change my systems a little bit to be more concise and clear. It seems
to be important when conducting research that the clearer you are the better
results you will gain. I think that my system could possibly work but to be
effective my criteria would need to be clearer so a sufficient diagnosis could
be made. However, one problem that I ran into would be with my expert. My expert seemed more interested in other people
and very uninterested in my study and I think because of this the results of my
study were thrown off. I also believe that my reliability and validity were so
accurate because the case studies were so clear cut and the case studies seemed
to go right with my two systems. Overall I expect this system could work in
diagnosing an exercise addict but there are also more factors that should be
looked at.
Case Studies
Case Study # 1
This is a 29 year old female who is the manager of a local business. She is also the mother of 3 and is constantly on the go. She is forced to eat fast food five days a week. She also suffered from anorexia during high school and college. For the past couple of months she has woken up two hours early every morning so she can get her daily workouts in. She also teaches aerobics three nights a week at the local YMCA and she is also teaching swim lessons every other weekend and she has recently taken up yoga.
Case Study # 2
This is a 26 year old female who is currently working towards a master’s degree in creative writing. She recently broke up with her boyfriend of three years and she was also involved in her parent’s ongoing divorce. She began to exercise to get her mind off of things and before she realized it she was running six miles a day, teaching swim lessons, dance class, and also yoga while continuing to work towards her degree. She has also begun to distance herself from her friends and family as a means of getting away from other peoples problems and she no longer goes out on the weekends because she is too busy with dance and yoga classes.
Case Study # 3
Missy is a 16 year old recovering anorexic who currently weighs 150 pounds. She recently joined her high schools cross country team because her friends talked her into joining. Missy’s coach is very demanding and because of this she began to run eight miles twice a day, rain or shine. If Missy didn’t get enough exercise during the day she stayed awake at night until her parents went to bed and then she would sneak out of the house and go running. By the end of cross county season Missy had lost 27% of her body fat and her period had also stopped.